by John Buntin
Six days later, on December 8, a Cohen lackey named Sam LoCigno presented himself (along with two attorneys) at Deputy Chief Thad Brown’s office with a startling confession: LoCigno claimed that he was the person who’d shot Whalen. LoCigno insisted that the shooting had been an act of self-defense. Whalen had approached the table, said “Hello, Mr. Cohen,” and then slugged one of the men at the table, George Piscitelle, before turning on LoCigno, saying, “You’re next.” Only then, LoCigno claimed, had he opened fire. LoCigno said that Mickey Cohen had urged him to turn himself in. (Cohen himself later told the press, modestly, that he had “induced” LoCigno to turn himself in “to save the taxpayers’ money.”)
Brown called in Chief Parker, who joined the interrogation. Brown and Parker quickly poked holes in LoCigno’s story. When Parker asked LoCigno where the gun he’d shot Whalen with was, he replied, “I don’t know.” He was equally fuzzy in his response to other important questions. Parker and Brown weren’t surprised. The intelligence division had long ago pegged LoCigno as nothing more than a “flunky and errand boy” for Cohen. Both felt certain that the man responsible for the shooting was Mickey himself. But try as they might, police were unable to find witnesses to make that case. Although Rondelli’s had been crowded with customers at the time of the killing, no one seemed to have seen anything—with the exception of a one-eyed horse bettor who’d had eighteen highballs before the shooting started. He fingered Candy Barr’s manager as the gunman. Instead, police focused on a more promising witness, a prostitute who claimed that Cohen ordered the killing, allegedly shouting, “Now, Sam, now!” just moments before the gun was fired. Unfortunately for the prosecution, however, on the witness stand, the prostitute acknowledged that she’d only heard this secondhand, from an off-duty maitre d’. That was hardly enough to override LoCigno’s confession.
Prosecutors tried to put a positive spin on the situation, trumpeting LoCigno’s conviction as the first successful prosecution of a gangland murder in two decades. In fact, Mickey Cohen had escaped again.
THE WHALEN SHOOTING quickly moved off the front pages, replaced by politics. That July Democrats were meeting in Los Angeles to nominate the Democratic presidential candidate. Between July 11 and 15, some 45,000 visitors would descend on the city for the convention. Police Commission member John Ferraro had been chosen to be chairman of the convention’s public safety committee. Ferraro, in turn, would rely heavily on Parker and the roughly three hundred officers he planned to detail to the event.
Defending the Democratic Party was, in some ways, an unlikely assignment for Chief Parker, who had become a high-profile antagonist of the party’s California branch. In 1956, Parker had expressed strong support for the reelection of President Dwight Eisenhower. Parker also had close ties to the Nixon campaign through Norris Poulson’s old campaign manager, Jack Irwin, who had joined the Police Commission after Poulson’s election. There he quickly became a strong Parker fan. Irwin was also a friend of Vice President Richard Nixon, the Republican nominee for president that year. Irwin’s connection to the vice president (and his ties to Chief Parker) worried J. Edgar Hoover. The FBI director feared that if Nixon was elected, he might attempt to ease out Hoover and replace him with Parker.
Parker was actually a double threat. Politically, he was closer to the GOP Personally he was closer to the Kennedy camp, thanks to his relationship with Bobby. The services he would offer Sen. Jack Kennedy during the convention would further solidify Parker’s Kennedy connections.
The convention began under a suffocating blanket of smog that left delegates with watery eyes and burning throats. Jacqueline Kennedy, four months pregnant, stayed away from Los Angeles entirely. Jack stayed with a few bachelor friends in a penthouse apartment in Hollywood owned by the comedian Jack Haley. Bobby stayed with brother-in-law Peter Lawford in Santa Monica. Joe Sr. monitored activities from the Beverly Hills mansion of his old friend Marion Davies, William Randolph Hearst’s longtime mistress.
From the start, Parker put the LAPD at the Kennedys’ disposal. At the opening reception on Sunday, Jack Kennedy, Bobby and Ethel, and Ted and Joan appeared, escorted by fifteen white-helmeted police officers and a thirty-person plainclothes detail. (In contrast, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson, his wife Lady Bird, and their two daughters were left to greet the crowd on their own, assisted only by volunteer “Johnson girls” handing out long-stemmed roses as a band played the Johnson campaign song, “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”) In general, though, security was light. There was no Secret Service protection. The Kennedy campaign asked that just one officer be assigned full-time to Jack. That proved insufficient. Well-wishers hemmed him in everywhere, stopping him to introduce themselves, to shake hands, to say hello. These encounters were sometimes quite frightening: on two occasions, enthusiastic supporters nearly tore off Kennedy’s coat. Eventually, the campaign asked for backup. Parker upped the detail to four. Instead of mingling with the delegates, Kennedy’s unit started to move him through freight elevators and basement kitchens.
The LAPD also proved to be useful during the convention. On Wednesday, July 13, 1960, some six hundred supporters of Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic Party’s nominee in 1952 and 1956, swarmed the Figueroa Street entrance of the Sports Arena, where the convention was being held. Although Stevenson insisted that he was not interested in being the party’s candidate, his supporters were determined to nominate him. So they settled on the desperate stratagem of blockading the convention and then charging the floor, with the hope that they would be able to take control of the convention proceedings. The police quickly intervened, rushing forces to the entrance in order to break the blockade.
When Kennedy cinched the nomination, Parker was pleased. Yet despite Parker’s genuine admiration for the Kennedy brothers, there were things about the family that made him uneasy. Several months after the convention, Parker went to visit his younger brother Joe and his sister-in-law Jane. One evening after dinner, the topic turned to the Kennedys. Bill made a fleeting comment, that “he would never believe” the things the Kennedys were involved in. Joe would later speculate that Bill spurned a job with the administration in Washington because he did not care to associate with the likes of the actor Peter Lawford and his good friend, Frank Sinatra.
Sinatra, whom Parker regarded as being “totally tied to the Mafia,” was clearly a sore point. Relations between the LAPD and the entertainer had been strained since at least February 1957, when three LAPD officers had burst into Sinatra’s Palm Springs house—at 4 a.m.—to serve the entertainer with a subpoena to appear before a congressional subcommittee investigating Confidential magazine, a scandal sheet that specialized in extorting money from celebrities with skeletons in their closets.
Exactly what kind of intelligence Parker had on the Kennedys is unknown. Once—just once—Joe picked up on a passing, uncomplimentary allusion to Kennedy-Hollywood skulduggery and expressed his doubts.
“Gee, you know, I just don’t understand how that could be true, Joseph told his brother.”
“Joe, you don’t hear anything about what’s really going on,” Parker replied.
BY ALL ACCOUNTS, the department did a superb job during the convention. Hailed by the Los Angeles Times editorial board for its good work, Parker was later feted at the Biltmore Bowl by nearly nine hundred leading citizens. His standing had never been higher. On November 8, 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy was elected to be the thirty-fifth president of the United States. Less than two weeks later, while out golfing with a New York Times reporter, the president-elect casually let drop that he was considering appointing his thirty-five-year-old brother to be the next attorney general of the United States. The response was immediate—and negative. Bobby had never been a practicing lawyer. Most recently, he had been Jack’s presidential campaign manager—hardly the nonpartisan background many hoped for in the nation’s top lawman. An editorial in the New York Times warned against nepotism in high office. “Wise men” such as Supreme C
ourt Justice William Douglas also criticized the prospective appointment. Privately, even JFK was doubtful. But Joe Sr. insisted that Jack needed his brother at the Justice Department precisely because he was the ultimate loyalist. Joe Sr. also wanted Bobby at Justice to protect the president from the one person in government best positioned to do JFK harm—J. Edgar Hoover. On December 16, the president announced the appointment, with his brother at his side, in front of Blair house.
The reaction in the underworld was explosive. Chicago Outfit boss Sam Giancana (who shared sometime paramour Judith Campbell Exner with Jack) immediately called Kennedy confidant Frank Sinatra and demanded to know what was going on. According to Outfit historian Gus Russo, Giancana “ended the call by slamming down the phone and then throwing it across the room.”
“Eating out of the palm of his hand,” the Outfit boss reportedly screamed. “That’s what Frank told me. ‘Jack’s eatin’ out of his hand.’ Bullshit, that’s what it is.” In Los Angeles, Cohen was equally surprised. Like virtually everyone in organized crime, Mickey had assumed that “the people” had reached an understanding with Joe Sr. “Nobody in my line of work had an idea that he [JFK] was going to name Bobby Kennedy attorney general. That was the last thing anyone thought.”
Parker was delighted. “It has been the pleasure of my office to work closely with Bobby Kennedy during his period as counsel for the McClellan Committee,” Parker noted in a statement released by his office to the press. “This opportunity to observe his philosophies in the law enforcement field has been most gratifying.” Parker confidently predicted “increased levels of support for law enforcement at all levels.” He was right. Within two weeks, Kennedy had declared war on organized crime. Press reports suggested that Chief Parker might well be tapped to head the effort.
Publicly, J. Edgar Hoover welcomed Kennedy’s appointment. (In fact, when JFK first floated the idea in November, Hoover had been the only major figure in Washington to express support for it.) But no one in the Kennedy family was fooled by this attempt to align himself with the new president. The antipathy between the two men was well known.
To the sixty-six-year-old J. Edgar Hoover, everything about Robert Kennedy was annoying: his sloppy dressing (Kennedy’s ties were rarely straight and his shirtsleeves were rarely rolled down); his lack of regard for the dignity of his office (Kennedy often brought his ill-behaved dog, Brumus, to work, despite the fact it violated Justice Department rules, and sometimes liked to throw the football to aides in his cavernous office). Hoover was aghast to find Kennedy playing darts one day, seemingly without any concern about whether the darts hit the target or the wall. (Hoover later fumed to an associate that Kennedy was “desecrating public property.”) Worst of all, though, was the obvious lack of regard for Hoover himself. Kennedy even had the audacity to “buzz” Hoover and ask him to come down to the AG’s office at once instead of courteously requesting an appointment with Hoover, as previous AGs had. In contrast, Kennedy was almost ostentatious in expressing respect for the man J. Edgar Hoover increasingly regarded as a rival, LAPD chief William Parker.
OVER THE COURSE of the 1950s, Hoover’s dislike of Parker had turned to hatred. Parker’s cardinal sin—the offense for which he was never forgiven—had occurred seven years earlier, at a policing convention in Detroit. J. Edgar Hoover had been the honoree of a gala dinner. Although the FBI director was not there in person, his achievements had been lauded by the assembled police executives—with the notable exception of Bill Parker. After the awards ceremony, Parker wandered “from bar to bar” grumbling that Hoover wasn’t the only competent police executive in the country. According to other attendees at the event, he’d also complained about the bureau’s civil rights investigations into his department. Hoover was incensed. He instructed the L.A. SAC “to have no contact with Chief Parker in the future.” He also suggested that friends of the bureau complain to Mayor Poulson about Parker’s conduct at the Detroit convention. They did, and when Parker got back, he was summoned to the mayor’s office to receive a personal rebuke from Poulson. Parker was bewildered that such minor grousing had reached the mayor. Puzzled, the chief called the L.A. SAC to clarify his comments. He asked if the bureau had put someone up to complaining to Poulson. Of course not, the SAC replied, telling Parker that it was “absurd to even entertain the thought.” Meanwhile, bureau agents were instructed to monitor Parker closely.
“As the Bureau knows, Parker has a flair for sounding off,” noted one memo. “He is like a rattlesnake in many respects; he is full of venom but seldom does he fail to give a warning when he is going to strike. When he is working on a new idea, he throws it out here and there to test reaction, and if he finds that his ideas are generally accepted he crystallizes them into a speech before some law enforcement groups.”
The rattlesnake was now in a position to succeed Hoover as the next director of the FBI.
Parker did not lobby for the job directly. Instead, he revived his idea of a national clearinghouse that could provide big-city police departments with information on organized crime. He also resumed his criticisms of the FBI’s director.
“The F.B.I. shows great interest when stolen property moves across a state line but little interest when criminals move from state to state,” Parker pointedly told the Herald-Express in December. Although the FBI was the natural choice to take on the job of leading an organized crime clearinghouse, “they have shown no indication that they will or that they want to,” Parker continued. As a result, a new agency was needed.
“I have a high opinion of the F.B.I. and Hoover,” Parker continued. “They are fine firemen. But the house is burning down.”
The L.A. office hastily fired off a memo to headquarters, describing the chief as “a blabbermouth.” It also suggested that Parker was attempting to stir up dissension between Hoover and the new attorney general. In truth, Parker hardly needed to work at that. The Kennedys weren’t exactly circumspect about whom they might prefer as FBI director. On the contrary, they openly joked about it. Just a few weeks after her husband was sworn in, Ethel Kennedy took the liberty of slipping a card into the FBI’s suggestion box at main Justice. Her suggestion was for Chief Parker to replace Hoover as the head of the FBI. She helpfully signed the note “Ethel.”
Ethel was a prankster. The card may have been a joke. But the joke was a pointed one because the sentiments it expressed (the desire to be done with Hoover) were obviously true. To his closest aides, Kennedy frequently criticized the director and mocked his intimate associate, Clyde Tolson. Once his brother Jack was reelected, he told friends, Hoover was out. No wonder Hoover feared that Kennedy and Parker were conspiring to dethrone him. But Hoover held a trump card—information. Eleven days after John F. Kennedy was sworn into office, Hoover forwarded a memo to RFK alerting him to a woman who was claiming to have had a sexual liaison with Jack. It was the first in a very long line of memos.
TO MICKEY COHEN, the selection of Robert Kennedy to be the attorney general was the latest development in a nightmarish autumn. On September 16, the LAPD intelligence division’s painstaking efforts to document Cohen’s extravagant lifestyle (along with a massive investigation by the Treasury Department and several months of intensive surveillance by the FBI) paid dividends when prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office indicted Cohen on thirteen counts of tax evasion and fraud. The sums named were startling. Prosecutors alleged that between 1945 and 1950 and between 1956 and 1958, Cohen had evaded $400,000 in income tax. Federal authorities also filed liens against Cohen in Los Angeles, El Paso, St. Louis, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in an effort to recover some of the $135,000 he still owed in back taxes following his first tax evasion conviction.
To Cohen, the case was nothing more than a personal vendetta.
“There’s no question about Bobby Kennedy and Chief William Parker having everything to do with my being indicted,” he would later fume. “[H]is squads were following me around here at the Mocambo, Ciro’s, Chasen’s. They had little ca
meras, they would snap pictures, they would take data.”
That data was now put to damning use. The strategy pursued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office was basically the same as that used in Cohen’s first trial: prove that Cohen’s expenses vastly exceeded his income. With information provided by the intelligence division and others, Treasury Department investigators were able to reconstruct in vivid detail Cohen’s free-spending ways. A string of witnesses further bolstered their case. The landlord of Cohen’s apartment at 705 S. Barrington in Brentwood testified that after moving in, Cohen had spent between $5,000 and $8,000 redecorating his apartment, a sum he described as “a nominal figure” for the retired gangster. He also noted that Mickey had paid $9,000 up front for rent and other expenses. The owner of the Sportsman Lodge remembered paying Michael’s Greenhouses $9,500 for landscaping work but was rather vague on what, if anything, had been done. A psychiatrist recalled a $10,000 gift to Cohen—in exchange for the right to study the gangster’s aberrant behavior.
Then there were the people who had invested in the Mickey Cohen life story.
The first investor appeared as early as 1951, when Beverly Hills decorator Henry Guttman gave Cohen $10,000 for all story and screen rights to the Cohen life story. That didn’t stop Mickey from seeking other investors. Several years later, a nightclub owner paid $15,000 for a 10 percent cut in Cohen’s book. When he tried to back out, he’d gotten a frightening phone call from someone in New York telling him that if he didn’t “straighten things out” with Mickey, he’d “be taken care of.” Other investors had followed. Comedians Jerry Lewis and Red Skelton testified to being approached by Cohen about producing and starring in his movie. (Cohen had originally wanted Robert Mitchum to play himself.) Lewis demurred, saying that “any productions bearing his name should involve levity.” (He did make a small investment in the project though; Mickey had been the person who first brought him to the West Coast to do a show at Slapsie Maxie’s.) Skelton had also turned down Cohen’s offer, pointing out that a “tall red-headed fellow” would hardly make a credible Mickey Cohen.